Face Off 08×02 – Monkey Business (SPOILERS)

SPOILERS

 

Here we go, part 2 of the opening Spotlight Challenge.  They’re faced with a group of monkeys who seem to be enjoying being the center of attention.  We’ve got a Squirrel Monkey, a Mandrill, an Olive Baboon, a White-Faced Capuchin, and a Brown Lemur.  Everyone is really nervous about now having to add a third character, but McKenzie tells them that they have an extra day.  Laura’s team chooses first, and they go with the Squirrel Monkey.  Anthony’s team chooses the Mandrill (who has a ‘of course you chose me, I’m fabulous’ look on his face when they cut to him), and Rayce’s team gets the Capuchin.

Laura’s team’s idea for the monkey is already worrisome.  They picked the cutest monkey up there, and they want to turn it into a menacing tyrant.  Gregory is confident he can do the face.  (Dun dun DUNNNNN).  Anthony’s team is going VERY monkey, and very Rafiki from The Lion King.  Rayce’s team notices that their Capuchin is 25, and she looks it, so they decide to go with old royalty.  Alan’s getting a chance to sculpt now and is doing the Mandrill face (he was only really working on fabrication before).  Same with Logan.  He sculpted the cowl on the arachnid alien for Rayce’s team, but now he’s going to handle the Capuchin Queen.

We see the coaches trying to get their teams moving faster – they know what it’s like to be way behind schedule.  Laura wants her team all in the mold room ASAP.  On Anthony’s team, Kelly is taking a long time on the face, and she should have been done it the day before, so she’s behind.  On Rayce’s team, he’s liking Regina’s face sculpt on the arachnid alien, but he’s worried that it’s taking too much time.

Mr. Westmore comes back through to check up on them and to see how things are going with the monkey characters.  He’s pleased that Anthony (of Team Rayce) has changed the sculpt on the face of the higher intelligence alien, since he REALLY didn’t like how it looked beforehand.  On Laura’s team, he’s concerned about Emily ventilating the hair for the monkey character because it’s very time consuming.  It’s also a process I’ve not yet seen anyone do on the show (that they showed, at least)

Kelly’s finally in the molding room with the Bruiser alien, but she makes the mistake of making the ultracal too thick, so it’s starting to set before she can lay burlap down to hold the whole mold together.  She’s like “naw it’s okay”, where as Ben is like “shit, this is trouble”.  He starts to try to plaster that thing with burlap as fast as possible, and they get a bit snippy with each other.

The coaches leave, and Laura’s concerned about the monkey face that Gregory is working on.  And, he decides to take a lead in the mold room because he’s a fast molder.  That’s great on one hand, but he really should be spending the time working on his sculpture…

They all go home and veg, but the coaches come banging on the door, and they all have a BBQ together, so the coaches can get to know their team a little more.

On Day 3, all the teams start popping molds and finishing up on the monkey sculptures.  Ben is making gloves for the alien characters on Anthony’s team, and Jamie and Kelly get to pre-painting their pieces.  Regina’s working on the crown for Team Rayce’s Capuchin Queen, and this is the first time she’s ever fabricated anything, and it’s going pretty well!  Laura’s still concerned about Gregory’s monkey face, and the cutaway interview has her trying REALLY hard not to just say “It sucks”

At the end of the day, Ben is having huge problems with his hand molds.  The fingers break off as he’s taking the mold apart, so there’s no way he can fix it in time to run them in foam latex, so he’ll have to do them in poly-foam.  Ruh-roh.

On application day, the coaches get to stay during the first hours in the lab, but they aren’t allowed to help during last looks.  Logan has to fix the arachnid cowl for Rayce’s team, because it came out all busted.  Ben is having huge problems with his hands.  Rayce is also the king of micro-management.  He’s all over the place keeping his team on schedule.

In Last Looks, Team Laura’s monkey face and Team Anthony’s alien hands just go from bad to worse.  Emily’s really upset that Rick Baker is going to see how bad it looks since she did the hair work on the monkey, but it’s not the hair work that’s the problem, so Gregory should be more worried.  So should Ben – bad hands have gotten SO many people in trouble in the past.

Okay, so here are the final looks! (They also jazzed up the background during the morphs)

 

Team Anthony:

Pilot Alien:

Hands look janky.  The paint job on the head is pretty decent, though.  It’s got a nice translucency.

Bruiser Alien:

Hands are even worse on this one than on the pilot.  The face has zero focal point, so your eye just goes everywhere.  Compared to the pilot alien, the paint is also very matte, and doesn’t have that same opalescence.

Mandrill King:

Fairly well done.  The proportions look good, and it does look very monkey, instead of like a monkey hybrid.

 

Team Rayce:

Arachnid Alien:

Turned out really cool.  There’s a lot of work on this dude.  The paint on the face is nice, too.

Higher Intelligence Alien:

Holy Crooked Face, Batman!  Something went wrong in application, and it takes away from the sculpt.

Monkey Queen:

Probably my fave makeup on the stage.  Turned out really well, and I love the tribal aspects to the crown, jewels, and chest piece.

 

Team Laura:

Younger Alien:

Nice paint job, especially towards the back of the head (looks better close up because you can see all the purple details)

Older Alien:

You can’t see it in the picture, but the back is all sandy yellows and greens to camouflage into a desert-like atmosphere.  The transition is handled nicely, and the judges love the shape of the forehead.

Tyrant Monkey:

Ugh.  I warned you.  Turned out AWFUL.  It looks more like a pug or turtle or anything other than a monkey.  Emily was worried about the hair, but nobody can get past how bad the face is.

 

Talking to the contestants for best and worst looks also goes a bit differently – like 3 or four people go up for each of the top and bottom looks.  Top looks are the Monkey Queen and the Arachnid Alien, both from Team Rayce.  The bottom looks are Laura’s monkey, and Anthony’s bruiser alien, which the judges just think is too busy, and the hands are just too ugly.

The winner is Logan, who deserves it because he did the cowl in the Arachnid Alien, and did the Monkey Queen face.  Gregory, Kelly, and Ben are in the bottom.  That means that Rayce will not lose anyone, and two of Anthony’s people are in the bottom.  But, it’s no surprise that Gregory goes home.  I wasn’t too impressed with him, so I’m glad that I’ll at least get to see what Kelly and Ben can do.  Sucks that Laura lost a person, though.

Okay, so now that we’ve had a spotlight challenge, I’m supposed to pick a person, but since everyone had a hand in everything, it’s kind of hard to choose.  However, I think I’m going to go with Darla.  I waffled between her and Logan, but during the Foundation challenge last week, Logan’s idea was kind of weird, so it makes me worry about his concepts when we get to solo challenges.